» hey mercedes broke up recently, which for some reason, doesn’t affect me as much as it would have two years ago. i guess maybe i’m getting ineffectual in my old age. that first album is still good though. see? can’t even muster emotion for that album. jeese.

» ed is on tbs now, which is awesome. i think it just started on monday from the beginning. it plays at 12pm pacific. set your tivo and watch michael ian black in all his weird sidekick splendor.

» speaking of tbs, are they airing these “i want my vacation back” commercials on regular stations? i’ve only seen it on tbs and comedy central, and it features a “CEO” talking into a camera and thanking the american people for making him so much money and getting rid of their vacations. if you go to the website you see a bunch of stats about how americans get the least amount of vacation. if you look closely, you’ll see the whole ad campaign is sponsored by universal studios orlando. the whois.sc entry proves it.

» have you ever wanted to boot to linux or just have the ability to? well, now you can boot to a slackware version, using slax. go ahead, nerd it up.

» the best movie of last year (still working on the film list, haven’t forgotten about it), even steven shaviro likes it: harold and kumar. damn right.

» oh yeah, jonas mentioned that the newsradio dvd finally has a release date, may 24th, suckas. thank god, i’m guessing that the commentaries and extras will in fact be worth the extra time it’s taking to get this out. desert island dvd, guaranteed.

uh, i’m driving back to seattle for the umpteenth time today and i need to finish packing. see you up there.

Lxe pointed out the Hot 97 Tsunami Song that they’ve been playing over in NYC. I’m not going to post the song, because no one needs to hear it, it’s a trite, cheap, racist and juvenile piece of shit that tries ways too hard to capitalize on shock value and the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Even the production values and musicianship hurt my fucking ears.

If a radio personality in a non-American country put something like this together about 9/11, then all hell would break loose. I think this, however, is slipping under the radar and that Hot 97 is currently trying to get people to forget about this so they can get their popular DJ back on the air.

Currently, Miss Jones, one of the DJs involved is serving an indefinite suspension, sponsors are pulling their ads from the station, and there have been numerous (albeit weak) apologies.

Listen, I don’t live in New York City, and I could care less if she got fired or not, but that shit is live, man and that attitude is blatantly offensive. There’s shit that’s just funny because it’s relatively innocuous, but one of the motherfuckers said HE WOULD START SHOOTING ASIANS. Was he joking? Sure, but what would happen if someone said he’d start shooting black people? Miss Jones is promulgating Asian stereotypes in mass media. This isn’t a question of over-sensitivity and political correctness, it’s an issue of decency and responsibility on the air waves.

I’m not about to go off and start nitpicking on every little thing out there because of this. Intangible bias is abound everywhere, but being aware of it is better than ignoring it. What really ticks me off about this particular situation is the audacity of the people behind it. The obvious and unabashed use of racial epithets and the complete and utter lack of compassion is unsettling. If the rest of society has to comply by these norms of decency, why don’t the people at Hot 97? Her audience is rallying behind her now, and people will think bigotry is all right, as long as it’s in a “funny” context.

I’m writing letters, if you feel so inclined, you should too. Check out hiphopmusic.com, who is doing a damn fine job staying on top of this story, keep on top of it here. Here’s his list of sponsor’s e-mails that you can write to as well as Hot 97’s parent company, Emmis Broadcasting. The FCC decency and complaints page is a good place to go too.

Keep the pressure on.

» the screenshots to the new warcraft type strategy game that is based on star wars look really effing good, check out star wars empire at war.

» aqueduct has a song on the barsuk webpage: growing up with gnr. my most vivid memory of gnr is my brother’s birthday party back in the day.

first impression: much more they might be giants than postal service. the drums on this song are pretty huge, but overall i’m not terribly impressed but am open to hearing more.

» the picture of pedro the lion on purevolume makes them look all tough. the live versions of “never leave a job half done” and “big trucks” are very nice though. the latter has some nice bounce to it. too bad pv’s sound is shite.

» jonas and i wrote a script mildly relate to rumsfeld’s secret army. if you wanna read it and make it, please, give me a ring, would ya?

» slowly making more improvements to the site, contemplated switching from movabletype to something like wordpress or textpattern and even installed both cms’s but found problems with the simplicity in customization, especially since i’ve put so much work into movabletype. still lots more work to do, though.

» currently rocking: kexp sans stevie zoom and amanda wilde? weird, but blasting ted leo anyway.

With the usual lack of promptness, I present my year-end list for music in no particular order along with a rollout of a new design that has some kinks that still need to be worked out. Don’t freak if there are no archives, because there aren’t. This a brand new weblog. Once I figure out how I’m gonna get all the archives back up with the respective design of the time, they’ll go back up. In the meantime I’m sure they’re around here somewhere. Also, I’m not sure all the links above work either, and the entire server is a damn mess that I’m going to get around to cleaning very soon but for now, I have to get up early to go welcome my niece into this world so I’m going to bed. Enjoy.

-tim 2:09 am.

The end-all list of favorite music of 2004.

These three albums will always be 2004’s holy trinity for me. I listened to them ruthlessly one after the other for weeks at a time and I also wrote a semi-large write-up on the production and engineering on them that I’ve never let anyone read save for a precious few. I’m using it as one of my writing samples for work right now. So why don’t I just post it here? I don’t know, why, honestly, maybe because I want to say something new and fresh about these albums. Maybe because they held so much more personal and indicative of the year. Cellar Door and We Shall All Be Healed both found me early from friends that had gotten promo copies. I listened to them well into the year, and every time I heard that sick spatter of tape machine at the beginning of “Cellar Door” and every time I listened to John Darnielle sing about tying his hands to the steering wheel and driving straight into the ocean - Goddamn. Southern California never felt so much like home to me when I sang along with Darnielle, “Garden Grove….” But that morphed into something different as I listened to the distinct northwest sound of Achilles Heel. Again, still in Los Angeles and knowing I was going back to Seattle at the end of summer and trying to separate this place from that without subduing the memory of something that hasn’t even yet happened. And I haven’t even started talking about the music.

Pop gems, across the board, dark humor, across the board, fine production, you guessed it, across the board. I don’t have much more to say than that, but really, haven’t I said enough?

Politics is the new indie rock. Death Cab for Cutie was on the OC, Modest Mouse on Saturday Night Live, Bright Eyes on the front page of The New York Times Arts and Entertainment section. Time to find a way to get ahead of the pack, and since Ted Leo will always be putting put the squeeze on the government, we might as well go to a DFA meeting instead of going to the crowded indie rock shows. Because he sticks it to politics-as-usual, because he takes it to the streets, because he doesn’t stop there; I’m saying Shake the Sheets is my favorite album of last year on content alone. Even though it didn’t kill like Hearts of Oak, every crash of cymbal, every hit of the falsetto on this album made me feel more connected to a movement than anything else this past year. Certainly not the Dean Scream, not the John Kerry “Help is on the way” speech, not even Barack Obama. And I am excited about Barack Obama. But. Long live Leo.

When I first heard Sam Beam was a film professor and did the Iron and Wine thing on the side, I was beside myself with jealousy. Whisper quiet vocals and strong-handed finger-picking, slide guitar and slightly buffed production, Our Endless Numbered Days sounds exactly like you’d think it would sound, like fingers across long grass. Great practice if you want to learn how to harmonize vocals, although it can be frustrating if you can’t find the right ones. The last few tracks alone are worth the cost of the album.

Okay, honestly, I didn’t give this as much of a listen as any of the other albums that came out and I’ll still say they hit their high point on Lonesome Crowded West and Interstate 8 will always hold a special place in my heart simply for the excruciating loudness of the kick drum on the first track. All that said, when I did listen to this, a total of two times in the car driving down to Los Angeles from San Francisco for the umpteenth time, I wasn’t impressed. But I did listen to “Float On” a million times and “The Ocean Breathes Salty” is also an outstanding track. I know, I know, those are the singles on this album, but driving to Redmond/Issaquah, I can never think of that place without conjuring the image of the band practicing in a shack and hearing the live recording at the end of Interstate 8playing in my head. I never said that nostalgia wouldn’t get you on my year-end list.

Lots of hype with this one from KEXP, and while I dig the beats and like the politically and socially conscious rhymes, I pretty much hate the packaging. Minor trifle, yeah, and yes, it was self-released, which is pretty amazing and a nice story for this NW duo, but I just had a hell of a time reading the track names on the back of this shit. Outstanding tracks include “Bruise Brothers”, “Burnt Offering”, “Evening Chai”. And yes, I do hold a bias, Geologic, the emcee is pinoy. REPRESENT! Lots of old school beats and melodic sampling, good flow if not a little over the top with conscious rhymes. Somebody needs to ask Blackalicious how they’ve been doing it, because Kweli lost it this year, Mos Def REALLY lost it this year, and Sage Francis may or may not have ever even had it. I’m hard on the guys, but that’s only because I love.

This band is suffering from some serious overexposure right now and I desperately wanted to not like this album at all purely to be contrarian. I want to say there’s too much hype, but for a band to be over-hyped, they can’t really deliver can they? There are some spectacular songs, but I haven’t gotten to the point where each song has been my favorite, there’s a few I don’t even like that much. Sometimes I get the beginning of “Neighborhood #1″ confused with the only song that I truly love off The Killers album, “All These Things That I’ve Done.” The story behind the band, the album, the music and live shows is more than enough to garner the attention they deserve, though, and the steel drums at on “Neighborhood #1″ kill. Some years it’s too easy for music critics to pick a number one.

Jack has released a series of tapes and demos over the months of last year and I’ve been able to see him play twice and hear more songs than he’s put to tape. Some of the catchiest melodies I’ve heard in a long time and strong story-telling lyrics keep the songs stuck in my head for days - it’s not a rare day when I wake up singing “Hey Abraham”. Seriously, if I had the money and the know-how, I’d put out the Online Romance record in a second.

I don’t have much to say about this at all except that I know I listened to it a lot and I liked most of it. That said, I for the life of me can’t think of one melody from it off the top of my head, except I do remember something about staying out when the sun sets and how it gets cold and stuff. Anyways, two thumbs up or something.

The “Didn’t Live Up To Expectations” Category.

The “If I’d Only Had The Cash” Category.

The “If I’d Only Bought It Sooner” Category.

I know this came out in 2003, but I didn’t buy it until recently, and damn if it isn’t good.

all right, man, my silence has been going on for long enough, i just had to break it with this incredibly odd link, where tons of hanford high school kids appear. including, none other than……. glenn. i am not, however, gonna post the link here, lest it make my internet presence known to any other hanfordites that i don’t necessarily need to have asking me why i linked their site. i think it’s jimmy c’s site, anyway. if you want the link, email me.

i’m almost done with the music stuff. i could be an uncle by as early as tomorrow. l.a. is too hot for the winter, it doesn’t make any sense.

the year-end list is in progress, but this takes a long time, people. be patient. i am.

if you’re in seattle, make sure you take your ass down to the crocodile cafe tonight where rat cat hogan will be playing and selling their new album (which won’t actually be released until march). it’s one of two shows that basically never, ever happen. the other one is in new york in a week or so. they’re bicoastal, you know.

back to the mutherfucking grind, right? wrong, bitches. i still don’t have a job and i’m gonna start blaming you (the collective “you”) for it. instead i’m sitting here in the gorgeous seattle public library. the playlist and all the songs are still up and available over right here and seeing as i was so late putting up that list, i might as well be just as late about putting up the new year’s review. i might work on it, i might not. got important shit to do, folks, serious.

here’s to 2005, i know ya’ll went over to this imploding party, but ours was a blowout, too. stay tuned.

holy shit, i totally forgot to mention how owl and i are on this comp, right and we’re the first track and streaming, suckas! buy it, it’s a limited edition cassette tape!: asaurus.org: the hiss that we have missed. oh yeah, it’s a smashing pumpkins comp. tape. believe it.